The ghost of a very pretty little boy dressed as Cupid now appears at her elbow, and discharges an arrow from his bow, which pierces the heart of the susceptible village girl. She attempts to caress the pretty Cupid, who eludes her kind advances, and is now discovered on the other side. The maiden turns to kiss him, but he is gone. At last, relenting, Cupid gives her a love-letter from some affectionate swain, which she takes and shows triumphantly to the audience, and leaving the girl to read it, the curtain again descended. These two illustrations of the ghost illusion ran for fifteen months without alteration, and were succeeded by many others—viz., Scrooge and Marley’s Ghost, by Charles Dickens; the Ghost of the diving bell; the knight watching his armour; the poor author tested; the Ghost of Napoleon I. at St. Helena; and the Ghost in Hamlet, pronounced by a leading R.A. as being nearly perfect, only wanting a little different colour in the walls of the ramparts, which I adopted with his ultimate satisfaction and approval.
The late Walter Montgomery took a great interest in the ghost proceedings, and assisted me greatly in arranging the scenes with due regard to the dramatic art. There is a mystery about his tragic end which deserves solution, and his brother-in-law told me at Brisbane, Queensland, that he did not commit suicide, but was shot by somebody else.
The sands of the year 1863 had been nearly run out, and I had taken the ghost to Manchester to a lecture hall then under the skilful management of Mr. Peacock, when another great success was scored—various London theatres took out licences to use the ghost; notably the Haymarket, under Mr. Benjamin Webster; The Britannia, under Mr. and Mrs. Lane; Drury Lane, under Mr. Chatterton, also subsequently and after the famous ghost trial before the Lord Chancellor. The Music Halls no longer tried to infringe the patent, but those who required it paid their fees for licences to do so.
The famous ghost trial came on in September at the private residence of the Lord Chancellor Westbury, who very graciously agreed to hear this patent case at once, because his lordship was informed by my solicitor, Mr. Walter Hughes, junr., that if he could not do so the Polytechnic Ghost would most likely be swamped by the multiplicity of imitators, good, bad, or indifferent.
Accordingly, one cold and chilly day I went down into Hampshire, accompanied only by my solicitor, Mr. Walter Hughes, junior, of the firm of Hughes, Masterman, and Hughes, 56, New Broad Street. On arrival we were shown into his Lordship’s drawing-room, where, to my dismay, I found a little army of solicitors and barristers drawn up as if in battle array, and sitting in a row against the right-hand wall of the room.
His Lordship’s secretary courteously came forward, and, noticing we were somewhat cold, placed chairs for us near the fire, and pulled up a table for our use on which to take notes.
We all rose respectfully when the Lord Chancellor entered, and, being requested by him to remain seated, the case was opened by his Lordship asking who appeared for the Plaintiffs, the music hall proprietors. At least four answered, “I do, my Lord,” and we in the minority could only give an answer from one voice—viz., that of my then young solicitor.
The music hall people came down with two newspaper reporters to record their certain victory over me, but which, as it turned out, was a mistake, because the reporters could only tell the truth and record the verdict given in my favour.
The Lord Chancellor, so far as I can remember (and I have no notes), then addressed the Plaintiffs—
1st. I shall require you to show cause by what right or authority you appear before me this day.